Covid-19 news: People hospitalised with omicron still face severe risk

People hospitalised with the supposedly milder omicron variant require similar levels of respiratory support and intensive care as those infected with delta. Heba Mostafa at John Hopkins University in the US and her colleagues studied more than 2000 people who tested positive for covid-19 between November and December 2021. The team recorded which variant the participants were infected with and their clinical outcomes. Results reveal 73 per cent of the participants who were hospitalised with delta needed extra oxygen, while 25 per cent required intensive care. Similarly, 67 per cent of those who were hospitalised with omicron required extra oxygen and 17 per cent needed intensive care.